A WRITER'S WITI have a lot of novels that I haven't finished. I usually get 150 pages in and I realize it's not going anywhere. I don't publish everything I write. I must have six unfinished novels at least.Jeffrey EugenidesBorn March 8, 1960Detroit, Michigan

MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the twenty-fifth post of fifty.

Michigan (1976)

R. Jespers, Lighthouse, Lake Michigan, 1976

My only encounter with Michigan came in 1976 when Ken and I traveled to the upper Midwest to see his friends who lived in and around Kalamazoo, where Ken had taught for several years. We were there over the Fourth of July holiday, and the weather was so cool and rainy most of the time that we wore jackets and long pants. I’d never seen such lush gardens, so many aged and massive trees. One of the graduating classes that Ken taught sponsored a reunion every five years. Actually, it was a group of people that had rather adopted Ken and for a while they all lived in a large house they called the Pleasure Palace. Ken has attended several of these reunions.

Michigan is the twenty-sixth state and celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1987.